Truthdigger of the Week: José Mujica : Can you imagine Abbott donating his salary to the poor?

The world’s “humblest” president, the “poorest president” in terms of personal wealth, the “most radical.” How did one man earn so many superlative epithets?

The 79-year-old Uruguayan President José Mujica—who leaves office at the end of next month—is at first glance an unlikely head of state. In keeping with the approach he developed while imprisoned for 14 years as a leftist Tupamaro urban guerrilla, Mujica repudiates materialism. Although the Broad Front party leader has been president of the now booming Latin American country since 2010, you won’t see him boasting the trappings of power that other world leaders embrace. His clothes are simple, his home is a “ramshackle” flower farm he refused to leave for the fully staffed presidential palace. His car, which for a long time was his only physical asset, is a plain 1987 Volkswagen Beetle. But while these superficial facts may have indeed earned “El Pepe”…